Page 23 of Miss Dashing
“Why did you kiss me?” Hecate asked, tapping her forehead. “Here.”
“Not done? Does nobody in the beau monde express affection? Does nobody touch? Nobody hug? I begin to think a lordly title more of a curse than a blessing if that’s the case.”
“They don’t touchme.” Heaven help her, she’d downed too much punch too quickly. Or she’d still been short of sleep after a three-hour nap. Some imbalance in the humors had to account for such an unseemly admission.
The owl hooted out another warning just as a burst of laughter drifted up from the main terrace. Hecate wanted more punch and more cakes and to be anywhere else.
No, on second thought, that was incorrect. She wantedher familyto be anywhere else, but then she’d worry about the mischief they were getting up to.
“I was born with a deformity,” Lord Phillip said in the same tones he might have offered to fetch more food. “My right shoulder and the muscles around it didn’t work properly. Forceps were to blame, apparently, but the old marquess chose to see my weakness as more proof that I was not his get. I could not crawl properly, and the strength on my right side is still not the equal to my left.”
“What has this to do with…?” Hecate fell silent as her mind’s eye filled with the memory of couples whirling on the dance floor. Hands held high, hands forming an arch for other couples, ladies twirled with confident strength by their manly partners.
How could one dance without a stout right arm?
“My neighbors touch me,” Lord Phillip said. “A pat on the back, a hug, a handshake, but until recently, I shook with my left hand. Nobody remarked it—they were being kind—until Tavistock brandished his right in a manner I could not ignore. Like putting up his fives, though with the best of intentions.”
“I’m… sorry.” Nothing in Phillip’s bearing or appearance suggested any imperfection. What point was he making with this disclosure?
“I wanted to shake with my right, but what if somebody took a notion to squeeze my hand too hard? Would that affect my shoulder? What if, knowing of my malady, they found my right hand distasteful? The whole business put me off greeting anybody face-to-face. To shake with the right hand is normal and manly, and yet…”
“You were not normal,” Hecate said, grasping a thread of significance. “You wanted to be, but fate decreed otherwise.”
“I am not normal,” Phillip said, “but who is? I do believe, though, that it’s normal to long to kiss a lovely woman when she has become dear to me. When I esteem her and enjoy her company and hope she can—despite my many shortcomings—enjoy mine.”
He was saying he was… attracted to her? The notion was equally outlandish and intriguing. Lord Phillip Vincent was woefully inadequate at dissembling, and he was still self-conscious about his shoulder apparently, and he wasn’t at all impressed with the Brompton Horde.
Who were, after two cups of punch, more than a bit tiresome.
“Are you wishing I’d kiss you, my lord?”
“If we’re venturing onto that fraught ground, might you call me Phillip?”
“Answer the question, Phillip.”
He took her hand. “One doesn’t wish to presume, et cetera and so forth, but one is also compelled by honor to deal with a lady honestly, and therefore, I do admit to harboring—”
“Hecate!” Eglantine’s soprano warbled out from the conservatory. “Oh, Hec-a-teeeee! My dear, you simply must come. Charles is trying to get up a whist party, and whist was invented by the devil to steal my pin money.”
Eglantine emerged from the house, a pale form against the increasing darkness. “Thatisyou? Who is your friend? Oh, Lord Phillip. Doing your bit for the family spinster? Too bad for you, I have need of her. Hecate, you must talk sense to Charles. Mr. DeGrange knows his way around a deck of cards, and Edna is encouraging this nonsense. My trunks haven’t been unpacked, and Charles is already imperiling his sons’ inheritance. Do excuse us, your lordship. Needs must.”
Phillip had dropped Hecate’s hand the instant Eglantine had called out, not that he need have bothered.
He rose and bowed. “I understand. Duty calls. Don’t spare the horses. The fate of England, we happy few, and so forth…”
Hecate rose and curtseyed, when she wanted to pitch Eglantine over the balustrade. “I’m coming, though whist for farthing points would pose no threat.”
Eglantine snorted. “You must set the stakes, Hecate. Charles won’t listen to me, and Edna will argue for pounds and pence, because she always hopes to win and seldom does.”
Hecate let herself be dragooned into the conservatory, though she paused to look over her shoulder. Phillip was lounging against the railing again, his glass in his hand.
When Hecate would have turned to go, he blew her a kiss, then tapped his lips. She could not be sure—no torches had been lit yet—but she was fairly certain he’d also winked at her.
Not done. Unspeakably sweet of him, butnot done.
“He’s coming home?” Edna Brompton asked, ready to snatch the blasted letter from Uncle Nunn’s grasp. “Our Johnny is coming home?”
“So he claims.” Nunn took a leisurely sip of his morning coffee. “Will take ship shortly, if he hasn’t already. Wants to be home before the autumn storms start up. One doesn’t trifle with North Atlantic weather.”
